Heartbreaker (21 page)

John listened impatiently, his hard, dark
face angry, his black eyes narrowed. Finally he said, "It hasn't been
three months since I straightened all that out. How the hell did you manage to
get everything in a mess this fast?"

Michelle looked up from the figures she was
posting in, curious to learn the identity of his caller. He hadn't said much
more than hello before he'd begun getting angry. Finally he said, "All
right I'll be down tomorrow. And if you're out partying when I get there, the
way you were last time, I'll turn around and come home. I don't have time to
cool my heels while you're playing." He hung up the phone and muttered a
graphic expletive.

"Who was it?'' Michelle asked.

"Mother." A wealth of irritation
was in the single word.

She was stunned. "
Your
mother?"

He looked at her for a moment; then his
mustache twitched a little as he almost smiled. "You don't have to sound
so shocked. I got here by the normal method."

"But you've never mentioned… I
guess I assumed she was dead, like your father."

"She cut out a long time ago. Ranching
wasn't good enough for her; she liked the bright lights of
Miami
and the money of
Palm Beach
, so she walked out one fine day and never came
back."

"How old were you?"

"Six or seven, something like that.
Funny, I don't remember being too upset when she left, or missing her very
much. Mostly I remember how she used to complain because the house was small
and old, and because there was never much money. I was with Dad every minute I
wasn't in school, but I was never close to Mother."

She felt as she had when she'd discovered he
had been married. He kept throwing out little tidbits about himself, then
dismissing these vital points of his life as if they hadn't affected him much
at all. Maybe they hadn't. John was a hard man, made so by a lifetime of
backbreaking work and the combination of arrogance and steely determination in
his personality. But how could a child not be affected when his mother walked
away? How could a young man, little more than a boy, not be affected when his
new wife walked out rather than work by his side? To this day John would do
anything to help someone who was
trying
, but he wouldn't lift a finger
to aid anyone who sat around waiting for help. All his employees were loyal to
him down to their last drop of blood. If they hadn't been, they wouldn't still
be on his ranch.

"When you went to
Miami
before, it was to see your mother?"

"Yeah. She makes a mess of her finances
at least twice a year and expects me to drop everything, fly down there and
straighten it out."

"Which you do."

He shrugged. "We may not be close, but
she's still my mother."

"Call me this time," she said
distinctly, giving him a hard look that underlined her words.

He grunted, looking irritated, then gave her
a wink as he turned to call the airlines. Michelle listened as he booked a
flight to
Miami
for the next morning. Then he glanced at her and said
"Wait a minute" into the receiver before putting his hand over the
mouthpiece. "Want to come with me?" he asked her.

Panic flared in her eyes before she
controlled it and shook her head. "No thanks. I need to catch up on the
paperwork."

It was a flimsy excuse, as the accumulated
work wouldn't take more than a day, but though John gave her a long, level
look, he didn't argue with her. Instead he moved his fingers from the
mouthpiece and said, "Just one. That's right. No, not round trip. I don't
know what day I'll be coming back. Yeah, thanks."

He scribbled his flight number and time on a
notepad as he took the phone from his ear and hung up. Since the accident,
Michelle hadn't left the ranch at all, for any reason. He'd picked up the newly
repaired Mercedes three days ago, but it hadn't been moved from the garage
since. Accidents sometimes made people nervous about driving again, but he
sensed that something more was bothering her.

She'd begun totalling the figures she had
posted in the ledger. His eyes drifted over her, drinking in her serious,
absorbed expression and the way she chewed her bottom lip when she was working.
She'd taken over his office so completely that he sometimes had to ask
her
questions about what was going on. He wasn't certain he liked having part of
the ranch out of his direct control, but he was damn certain he liked the extra
time he had at night.

That thought made him realize he'd be
spending the next few nights alone, and he scowled. Once he would have found
female companionship in
Miami
,
but now he was distinctly uninterested in any other woman. He wanted Michelle
and no one else. No other woman had ever fit in his arms as well as she did, or
given him the pleasure she gave just by being there. He liked to tease her
until she lost her temper and lashed back at him, just for the joy of watching
her get snooty. An even greater joy was taking her to bed and loving her out of
her snooty moods. Thanks to his mother, it was a joy he'd have to do without
for a few days. He didn't like it worth a damn.

Suddenly he realized it wasn't just the sex.
He didn't want to leave her, because she was upset about something. He wanted
to hold her and make everything right for her, but she wouldn't tell him about
it. He felt uneasy. She insisted nothing was wrong, but he knew better. He just
didn't know what it was. A couple of times he'd caught her staring out the
window with an expression that was almost…terrified. He had to be wrong,
because she had no reason to be scared. And of what?

It had all started with the accident. He'd
been trying to reassure her that he wasn't angry about the car, but instead
she'd drawn away from him as if he'd slapped her, and he couldn't bridge the
distance between them. For just an instant she'd looked shocked, even hurt,
then she'd withdrawn in some subtle way he couldn't describe, but felt. The
withdrawal wasn't physical; except for the night of the accident, she was as
sweet and wild in his arms as she'd ever been. But he wanted all of her, mind
and body, and the accident had only made his wanting more intense by taunting
him with the knowledge of how quickly she could be taken away.

He reached out and touched his fingertips to
her cheekbone, needing to touch her even in so small a way. Her eyes cut up to him
with a flash of green, their gazes catching, locking. Without a word she closed
the ledger and stood. She didn't look back as she walked out of the room with
the fluid grace he'd always admired and sometimes hated because he couldn't
have the body that produced it. But now he could, and as he followed her from
the room he was already unbuttoning his shirt. His booted feet were
deliberately placed on the stairs, his attention on the bedroom at the top and
the woman inside it.

Sometimes, when the days were hot and slow
and the sun was a disc of blinding white, Michelle would feel that it had all
been a vivid nightmare and hadn't really happened at all. The phone calls had
meant nothing. The danger she'd sensed was merely the product of an overactive
imagination. The man in the ski mask hadn't tried to kill her. The accident
hadn't been a murder attempt disguised to look like an accident. None of that
had happened at all. It was only a dream, while reality was Edie humming as she
did housework, the stamping and snorting of the horses, the placid cattle
grazing in the pastures, John's daily phone calls from
Miami
that charted his impatience to be back home.

But it hadn't been a dream. John didn't
believe her, but his nearness had nevertheless kept the terror at bay and given
her a small pocket of safety. She felt secure here on the ranch, ringed by the
wall of his authority, surrounded by his people. Without him beside her in the
night, her feeling of safety weakened. She was sleeping badly, and during the
days she pushed herself as relentlessly as she had when she'd been working her
own ranch alone, trying to exhaust her body so she could sleep.

Nev Luther had received his instructions, as
usual, but again he was faced with the dilemma of how to carry them out. If
Michelle wanted to do something, how was he supposed to stop her? Call the boss
in
Miami
and tattle?
Nev
didn't doubt for a minute the boss would spit nails
and strip hide if he saw Michelle doing the work she was doing, but she didn't
ask
if she could do it, she simply did it. Not much he could do about that.
Besides, she seemed to need the work to occupy her mind. She was quieter than
usual, probably missing the boss. The thought made
Nev
smile. He approved of the current arrangement, and would
approve even more if it turned out to be permanent.

After four days of doing as much as she
could, Michelle was finally exhausted enough that she thought she could sleep,
but she put off going to bed. If she were wrong, she'd spend more hours lying tense
and sleepless, or shaking in the aftermath of a dream. She forced herself to
stay awake and catch up on the paperwork, the endless stream of orders and
invoices that chronicled the prosperity of the ranch. It could have waited, but
she wanted everything to be in order when John came home. The thought brought a
smile to her strained face; he'd be home tomorrow. His afternoon call had done
more to ease her mind than anything. Just one more night to get through without
him, then he'd be beside her again in the darkness.

She finished at ten, then climbed the stairs
and changed into one of the light cotton shifts she slept in. The night was hot
and muggy, too hot for her to tolerate even a sheet over her, but she was tired
enough that the heat didn't keep her awake. She turned on her side, almost
groaning aloud as her muscles relaxed, and was instantly asleep.

It was almost two in the morning when John
silently let himself into the house. He'd planned to take an
8:00 a.m.
flight, but after talking to Michelle he'd paced
restlessly, impatient with the hours between them. He had to hold her close,
feel her slender, too fragile body in his arms before he could be certain she
was all right. The worry was even more maddening because he didn't know its
cause.

Finally he couldn't stand it He'd called the
airport and gotten a seat on the last flight out that night, then thrown his
few clothes into his bag and kissed his mother's forehead. "Take it easy
on that damned checkbook," he'd growled, looking down at the elegant,
shallow and still pretty woman who had given birth to him.

The black eyes he'd inherited looked back at
him, and one corner of her crimson lips lifted in the same one-sided smile that
often quirked his mouth. "You haven't told me anything, but I've heard
rumors even down here," she'd said smoothly. "Is it true you've got
Langley Cabot's daughter living with you? Really, John, he lost everything he
owned."

He'd been too intent on getting back to
Michelle to feel more than a spark of anger. ' 'Not everything."

"Then it's true? She's living with
you?"

"Yes."

She had given him a long, steady look. Since
he'd been nineteen he'd had a lot of women, but none of them had lived with
him, even briefly, and despite the distance between them, or perhaps because of
it, she knew her son well. No one took advantage of him. If Michelle Cabot was
in his house, it was because he wanted her there, not due to any seductive
maneuvers on her part.

As John climbed the stairs in the dark,
silent house, his heart began the slow, heavy rhythm of anticipation. He
wouldn't wake her, but he couldn't wait to lie beside her again, just to feel
the soft warmth of her body and smell the sweetness of her skin. He was tired;
he could use a few hours' sleep. But in the morning… Her skin would be
rosy from sleep, and she'd stretch drowsily with that feline grace of hers. He
would take her then.

Noiselessly he entered the bedroom, shutting
the door behind him. She was small and still in the bed, not stirring at his
presence. He set his bag down and went into the bathroom. When he came out a
few minutes later he left the bathroom light on so he could see while he
undressed.

He looked at the bed again, and every muscle
in his body tightened. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He couldn't have torn his
eyes away even if a tornado had hit the house at that moment.

She was lying half on her stomach, with all
the covers shoved down to the foot of the bed. Her right leg was stretched out
straight, her left one drawn up toward the middle of the mattress. She was
wearing one of those flimsy cotton shifts she liked, and during the night it
had worked its way up to her buttocks.

She was exposed to him. His burning gaze
slowly, agonizingly moved over the bare curves of her buttocks from beneath the
thin cotton garment, to the soft, silky female cleft and folds he loved to
touch.